Murder, Mystery & Makeup - The Corn Rake Mystery - A Farmer Attacks Or Wrongly Accused?

Episode Date: June 20, 2023

Hi friends! I hope you are having a good day so far, today I wanted to talk about a case thats been heavy on my noggin! I watched the whole court trial and was just left with more questions than answers. Love you so much and please be safe out there! Hope to be seeing you very soon. x o Bailey Sarian Watch the original video here and don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube @BaileySarian! Tik Tok: https://bit.ly/3e3jL9v Instagram: http://bit.ly/2nbO4PR Facebook: http://bit.ly/2mdZtK6 Twitter: http://bit.ly/2yT4BLV Pinterest: http://bit.ly/2mVpXnY Youtube: http://bit.ly/1HGw3Og Snapchat: https://bit.ly/3cC0V9d Discord: https://discord.gg/BaileySarian"""

Hi friends, how are you today? My name is Bailey Sarian and today is Monday, which means it's murder, mystery, and makeup Monday. Sana-sah, sana-sah, sana-sah-sah-sah-sah-sah. Sah. If you are new here, hi, how are you? I hope you're doing well. My name is Bailey Sarian and on Mondays I sit down

and I talk about a true crime story that's been heavy on my noggin. And I do my makeup at the same time. If you're interested in true crime and you like makeup, I would highly suggest you hit that subscribe button because I'm here for you on Mondays. Today's story, I watched all 12 hours of this court trial. Yeah, you're welcome.

You don't have to now. And it's been heavy on my noggin. Oh my gosh, let me tell you, because I don't know. I don't know how I feel. I don't know. It's just, I don't know, you know? So I wanted to talk about it and then get your guys' input.

I don't think I have to do a disclaimer because there is no graphic description of crime scenes. There is adult dialogue, probably strong language, viewer discretion is advised. So the year is 2018. This story takes place in Delaware County, Iowa, in a small town named Irville. Now Irville, Iowa is said to be a very rural.

Oh my gosh, I can't say rural. Rural? Fuck me, sideways. Okay, well I'm done. You know, this is it. Anyway, so Irville has a population of around 800 people. So it's like a small town to say the least. Most of the people in this area,

they make their living by farming or hog farming. And that is where Todd and Amy Mullis lived and also where they owned and operated their family farm. So the Mullis farm was on a large piece of property. Like it was big, okay? It's not like the little farm that you're thinking of. It was a big farm. They had two large hog barns, tons of farming equipment

and spent majority of their time maintaining and operating the farm. This was how they made their livelihood, it's how they took care of the family. Amy Mullis, she was 38 in 2018. She was said to be bubbly and outgoing and just really fun to be around. She enjoyed, I think she did,

I think she enjoyed helping out around the farm. I mean, I'm pretty sure she did. And she loved being around people. That's what it was said. Todd was 43 at the time, and it was said that he was a very hard worker. He was a well-known successful farmer in the area. He was a straight shooter type of guy.

And then some neighbors would say that Todd had like a mean side to him. Another person said that he was scary. So Todd and Amy were married in 2004, and by 2018 they had three young kids. So in November of 2018, Todd, Amy, and their 13 year old son, Tristan, were doing some work on the farm while the other two kids like stayed inside of the house. Todd and Tristan, they went to work in one of the hog barns,

which was pretty large. It's about the size of like a football field in length. And then Tristan said that he was setting up portable heaters inside the barn while Todd was setting up equipment to get water inside of the pens. Amy, who was like inside, she came out and she was there to help clean the lights. She just had some kind of surgery done.

It was never clear as to what surgery she had done exactly, but it was something minor. She was just kind of like resting for a couple of days. And then this was the first day that she was able to get up and help around the farm. So while cleaning the lights inside of the barn, Amy grabbed like a bucket, right? And she placed it upside down

and she was standing on it to help her reach the lights. Her son Tristan had noticed that she was kind of like stopping and she was standing on it to help her reach the lights. Her son, Tristan had noticed that she was kind of like stopping and she was grabbing her head. And she told Tristan that she was just getting a little dizzy, a little lightheaded, and that she was like trying to like hold herself on the bars close to her

to prevent herself from falling off of the bucket. So she was kind of shaky. And then Tristan asked if she was okay. And she told Tristan like, yeah, I'm fine. I'm just got a little dizzy. Todd also noticed that she seemed to be getting lightheaded and said that he really didn't think it was wise for her to stay out there and work

because he didn't want her to get hurt. So Todd suggested that Amy should go inside the house and like get some rest. But Amy insisted that she was fine and she just, it's not a big deal, she's good. So she continues to work. Todd asked Amy if she could grab a pet carrier out of the red shed that was about 30 yards or 27 meters

away from the front of the barn where they were in. They had a bunch of cats and kittens on the farm, so they wanted to gather them all up and put them in the pet carrier. That way when Todd used heavy machinery, none of the cats would end up like getting hurt or anything or like in the way of the heavy machinery. So that's what the plan was.

Tristan testified that his dad told his mom, if you can get the pet carrier and bring it out, that would help, but if you can't just pet carrier and bring it out, that would help. But if you can't, just leave it and then we'll go get it. So Amy leaves the barn where the boys are working at. And then the two boys, they kept working for about an hour and a half.

When they were done, they went to the front office area. Todd looks out the window and sees that like the pet carrier wasn't moved out of the barn. So he assumed that Amy didn't get the pet carrier and instead must've like gone inside the house. Todd asked his son if he could go to the red shed and grab the pet carrier because it wasn't out. So Tristan the son, he runs over there.

That's when he finds his mom on her hands and her knees face down with a corn rake sticking out of her back. Yeah. Tristan said that he ran up to her, he checked to see if there was a pulse, and then he yelled for his dad. So his dad comes running and he told Tristan to go grab the family truck and to pull it up.

Todd said then he pulled the corn rake out of her back, picked Amy up and carried her to the truck. The shed where Amy was found is very narrow. And Todd said the only way that he could get her out of the shed was by removing the corn rake from her back. And that's what he did. Todd said that at that moment, he just like went into fight or flight like mode

and just really wasn't thinking, he was just doing. So Todd said that he picked Amy up and he carried her out. Tristan pulled up the truck. He moved over to like the passenger seat. And then Todd like opens up the door and puts Amy into the truck, laying across her son bleeding. Todd jumped into the driver's seat

and started heading towards regional medical center in Manchester and called 911 while he's driving. Mind you, where they lived, it's like a very secluded area. There wasn't anything around them. It's just like grass. The hospital was like quite some time away. So Todd's just driving. And when he's driving,

that's when he makes the frantic 911 call. And he's telling the dispatcher that she fell on a rake. She's not responding. He's frantic, as any of us would be. He then tells the 911 dispatcher that he had removed the corn rake from her back and was just on like full blown panic mode on the call. The 911 dispatcher was like, you're driving?

Okay, can you pull over to the side of the road? And Todd was like, pull over? And the dispatcher's like, yeah, can you pull over and just start doing CPR? And Todd's like, I'll do anything. So he pulls over, Tristan gets out of the car, he sits Amy up and then pulls the seat all the way back so she's laying flat.

And then that's when he starts to perform CPR. At this point in the call, you can hear Todd saying over and over again that she's cold, she's not responding, but he's still continuing to do CPR and just yelling like, come on, Amy, come on. So a police officer shows up to where they are, pulls Amy out of the truck and continues to do CPR until the ambulance shows up

and takes Amy to the hospital where she was later pronounced dead. Police officer who arrived at the scene noticed how traumatized the teenage son was. He was covered in blood. He just like had his mom die in his lap or maybe she was already dead, but either way it was just like all around sad.

Refills. There was a lot of judgment around Todd's choices. The decision he made to place Amy into the truck on top of their son. But Todd said again that he was just like, he was just doing and not thinking through things clearly. The hospital that Amy was taken to was the same hospital that Amy once worked at as a nurse.

Now, when she was taken in, they were told that it was just like a freak accident, okay? She must've just fell on this rake and that's really all they knew. Now, the National Farmers Union has made it very clear how dangerous farming can be, or how just dangerous the job can be. They have tons of information available

on how to prevent injuries and death while working. Anything from how to handle the heavy machinery, preventing a rollover accident, just educating on how these tools to help farmers are not to be fucked with. You know what I'm saying? I watched like a ton of these educational videos where they have like, they use like a dummy

to show what can happen to you if you're not being smart. So I watched these like dummies get sucked into things that you just like don't wanna be sucked into. It was like, it was brutal, it was intense. I don't know why I watched so many of them, but I just was like whoa. Anywho, in 2017 there were 416 farm workers who had died from a work-related injury. I couldn't find information, like newer numbers, the one I could find was 2017. So what I'm getting at is there's like a lot of freak accidents that do happen to farmers.

So the doctor has to make sure that Amy's injuries, they line up with this being an accident. So they do just that. And then they realize that her injuries did not seem to line up with accidentally falling on a corn rake. So the corn rake that Amy had fallen onto had four sharp prongs or teeth or claws, whatever they are, the four of them, and they were sharp.

It's not like a rake, nay nay. Well, medical examiners found that Amy had six puncture wounds on her back. Huh, four teeth, six puncture wounds. Now, how does that make any damn sense? During her autopsy, it was determined that there were two different directions of the six puncture wounds.

To the forensic pathologist, it indicated to them that Amy would have to be hit by the rake twice and possibly three times to create the pattern that was on her back. But also on the inside of Amy's upper lip was a small scrape and blunt force injuries to Amy's face, hands, and knees. Possible evidence of a struggle,

but it was unclear because it may have been from her falling. So police are thinking, okay, the odds of Amy falling onto a rake twice, slim to none. So now they're thinking or treating Amy's death as a homicide. The day of Amy's death, a police officer went out to the scene, to the farm, and they checked around for any type of foul play.

So inside of the red shed where Amy was found, there were a couple drops of blood on the floor where she was like laying at, but there were, or there was no other signs of blood or a struggle in the shed. Now again, because it was a narrow and just tight area, if there was any type of struggle, it it was a narrow and just tight area, if there was any type of struggle,

it would be a little more clear to investigators or police. Like it would be more obvious. It's believed that if Amy was hit two to three times by this rake, there would be spots of blood on just like different places in the shed, on the suspect or even on Amy herself, but there was none found. There was blood on Amy, but it was from her puncture wounds.

So again, this was a small town and the police force, they didn't investigate murders often, okay? Amy's death was only the fourth murder in the last 10 years. They felt like they couldn't really handle this. So they ended up handing it off to a larger department to help investigate. So of course they have to look into the husband first.

They go question him, what happened? And Tom said, not Tom, I'm sorry, Todd. So Todd tells investigators, he was in the other barn working with his son. And when the son was questioned, he said that his dad was with him or in his sight the whole time. Like they were working in the barn together.

So it was a solid alibi and nobody's story was changing. So they realize, okay, let's start looking around and see if there's something that we're missing. And that's when they learn that Amy and Todd had a bit of a rocky marriage. Amy had two affairs throughout their marriage. One of them had been like five years, five years ago, and it had come to an end. After her first affair, Amy, she was working as a nurse.

She ended up quitting her job to help work on the farm and also just to focus on her marriage. Todd said that she wanted to spend more time with her family, but Amy told friends that she really had no other choice. Like she had to quit her job and stuff. Amy's friend said it was a deal she made with her husband, Todd. Todd said that it was what they both had agreed to. It was not just his idea.

Amy had expressed to friends that Todd had worked too much. That's all he wanted to do. And if he wasn't working, he wanted to stay home. But Amy was a people person. Like she wanted to go out. She wanted to like live a little, you know? And Todd was just never down. So that was frustrating.

It was said that after the first affair, Todd really didn't trust Amy pretty much ever again. Amy had expressed to her friends that she felt like a prisoner in her own home. And she joked with friends that Todd had given her an approved friends list, people that she could actually hang out with. She also told friends that she would be timed when she left the house and like when she

got back. So Todd was trying to keep tabs on her or like time her to make sure that she was saying where she was and it was a way for Todd to rebuild his trust in the relationship. Amy told her friends this. In 2018, Amy confided in her friend that her marriage just wasn't going well. She was really unhappy and she hadn't been happy for a really long time, like for many years now.

I'm pretty sure she expressed this to Todd because Todd said that he told Amy he wanted, he wanted to make it work. He didn't want her to leave. He wanted to make their marriage work and he wanted to go to therapy. He didn't want her to leave. He wanted to make their marriage work and he wanted to go to therapy together and get some help. But that same year in 2018, that's when Todd said he noticed a change

in Amy's behavior, which was raising some red flags. He thought that maybe she was being unfaithful again and started just to get really paranoid. So Todd started looking at phone records and saw that Amy was texting and like calling this guy named Jerry Frazier, who worked as a fields manager for the Mullis farm. Todd is looking at the phone records

and he sees that the two of them had exchanged up to 128 texts that month. And he was thinking, I think there's like something more going on. exchanged up to 128 texts that month. And he was thinking, hmm, I think there's like something more going on. Amy, she worked as a bookkeeper for the farm. So it was normal for she and Jerry to be in contact. But Todd, he was like, I need some peace of mind here

because he's just like getting fixated on this possibility of there being an affair. So Todd calls up Jerry and he's asking like, hey, is there anything going on between the two of you? Jerry said like, no, nothing's going on. The reason that they were talking to each other was related to the farm and also their kids both participated in sports together.

So it was just all related to that and nothing more. So I guess Todd really didn't believe this because he decides that he's gonna call Jerry's wife. Oh yeah, Jerry was married too. And he had a family of his own, okay? So Todd calls up his wife. Hey, have you noticed any like change in Jerry at all? Do you think that maybe he's acting kind of fishy?

Perhaps having an affair? I'm sorry, I don't know why I'm acting so dramatic, but anyways, so he does that. He asks the question. Jerry's wife said no, that their marriage was going really well and just convinces Todd, calm down, nothing's going on. He needs to just let it go.

You know, everything's okay. Now at this point, Todd said that it really, like that conversation gave him the peace of mind that he really needed. He believed Jerry's wife. Todd texted or called Jerry and apologized for making the accusations and was gonna let it go. So he's like, I guess nothing's going on.

I'm just being fricking paranoid. My bad, I'm in the wrong. But the truth was, Amy and Jerry, they did indeed start having an affair in late May of 2018. They would meet in secret, either on the farm or on back roads. And then sometimes like they would meet at motels. It seemed the relationship

was mainly sexually focused for Jerry, but Amy was becoming more emotionally involved. Amy had mentioned to a friend, like what was going on between her and Jerry, and how she would like really like to get married to him one day. She even mentioned to friends that she was hoping Jerry was gonna leave his wife, but if he didn't leave his wife, she was okay with that,

and she was okay with being alone. But after Jerry received the call from Todd, he told Amy like, hey, I think we should slow things down. But with or without Jerry, Amy, I think we should slow things down. But with or without Jerry, Amy, she did start to plan to move out and seriously started thinking about filing for divorce.

Amy had already started putting furniture aside, so when she moved, she would have like a few items with her already. Now, if Amy did end up filing for divorce, she would have been entitled to a good amount of money, maybe even half of the farm, which could force Todd to lose everything. So possibly a motive.

So like I've mentioned about 18 times, it was a small town. And what happens in small town, you guys? Rumors start swirling. People are talking and there's lots of rumors going on that there's an affair happening between Jerry and Amy, which I used to kind of think, I think I mentioned, this is a side note, in one of my videos previously, I mentioned, oh, I think it'd be so fun to live

in a small town where everyone knows each other. Like that sounds so fun. But the more I think about it, I regret my statement. It must actually really suck. Sorry. It would be all fun and games until you were trying to be a sneaky little bitch, you know? So a lot of people are talking about the affair. Amy told her friend that she was gonna sit Todd down

and tell him that people are just talking and that there was no truth to these rumors. I'm not sure if this conversation or this talk actually happened, but it was brought up in court. Police are finding all of this out during their investigation. So they go back to Todd.

They bring him back in November 16th, 2018 for questioning. They sit him down and they're like, well, it's just one guy. And he's like, he tell me, you know, how was the marriage between you and Amy? Todd said, oh, you know, it was pretty tight. Communication was great and that they were together all of the time.

But overall it was good. He said that they had their ups and downs, but it was just like any other marriage. At this point, investigators already knew about the affair and they tell Todd pretty point blank that they think he's responsible for Amy's death. They're like, we think you did it, Todd. And Todd is like, I'm responsible, how?

Now you could watch the interrogation if you want to, but I'm a great actress. I'm responsible, how? Like he's just kind of quiet. This was a red flag for the guy doing the questioning, because he thought like this response wasn't dramatic enough, I guess. They expected him to be like, what? Not me! You know, and they just thought it was a weird response.

When they brought up the affair during questioning, Todd said that he was completely unaware that anything was going on with his wife since the first affair that she had five years earlier. So the guy in the interrogation room, he's like, look, Todd, she was having an affair. You were upset. You didn't want to lose the farm. And then Todd's sitting there like shaking his head,

just like, no, I didn't know that. But the guy doing the questioning, he just wouldn't stop. And he was like, you were so mad about that and you felt betrayed. There was no way you were going to let her take all of that from you. Not cheating on you twice, taking your kids, taking your farm, that wasn't happening.

And you weren't gonna let that happen. And I understand that. And Todd is just quiet the whole time and he's shaking his head, but he stuck to his story that he was not in the red shed and he did not stab his wife with the corn rake. Todd said, you want me to confess to something that I didn't do and that's all it comes down to.

But the guy in the questioning room was just pushing. You killed Amy. I was surprised that he didn't ask for an attorney at that point. I think a lot of us assume that if we are telling the truth, then why else would you need an attorney? If there's anything you should learn, you should just always get an attorney

if you're being questioned. And it's like, yeah, the attorney's probably gonna make you look guilty, but hey, it's better than like falling for some kind of trap. So after two hours of direct accusations, Todd was allowed to leave because they didn't have anything on him. So he leaves and he goes back to the farm. I think before Todd's questioning,

they needed to weed out Jerry as a potential suspect. So technically I think this came before Todd's questioning, sorry. But either way, they had to weed Jerry out as a potential suspect, okay? He was having an affair with Amy. Maybe he didn't want his wife and kids to find out and potentially lose his farm and family. He could have done it. So they go out to Jerry's and they're like,

"'Hey, can we talk to you?' And that's when he told investigators that the two were indeed having an affair. But Jerry insisted that he did not have anything to do with Amy's death. He said the day of her murder she and him had exchanged emails that morning. Jerry told Amy that he wasn't feeling too well and Amy responded saying that she wished she could take care of him, that she's a pretty good nurse, but that day he was working at the farm with his own son at home,

which was in Anamosa, and Anamosa was like 45 minutes away, because he has working at the farm with his own son at home, which was in Anamosa. And Anamosa was like 45 minutes away. Cause he has his own hog farm. And oh my gosh, did I learn so much. He and his son got up and they were working on the farm and they're setting up tanning beds for the pigs. Yeah, girl, let me tell you, let me tell you. Pigs tanning.

Yeah, they tan the pigs or the hogs. Pigs and hogs, whatever. They tan them for hog shows. In winter, they lose the pigs or the hogs. Pigs and hogs, what? They tan them for hog shows. In winter, they lose all their color. I was like, wait, what? He's like, we're setting up the tanning beds. I was like, pigs? I've never related more to a pig, you know?

I wonder if they know about like self tanner for the pigs. I mean, that's an option. Do they get skin cancer? Look, I got a lot of questions about this, but anyways, they're tanning the pigs for a show, okay? That's what they're doing. After that, they went inside and the two of them, Jerry and his son, they watched college football together.

Jerry said that the last time he had seen Amy was like a couple days prior, when the two of them had participated in some oral loving. So Jerry ended up testifying in court that Amy had told him if Todd ever found out about the two of them having an affair, she would disappear. So investigators, they end up checking Jerry's phone record and they see that his cell phone had pinged

on a tower near his home, which was enough proof to them to confirm that he was not the one who did this. So after this questioning with Jerry, that's when they questioned Todd. Anyway, so investigators, they carried out a series of search warrants and they gathered all of the electronic devices from the Mollis farm.

They took computers, laptops, iPads, iPhones. Oh yeah, they had video cameras on the property. So yeah, they took that too. So they searched the video cameras, which they're pointed directly in the direction where everything took place. So I mean, if something was caught, it'd be on those cameras.

I mean, the footage would be their smoking gun. But of course the cameras stopped working prior to the incident, but started recording again the day after Amy's murder. Of course, right? Of course. So again, when investigators find this, they're thinking, you know,

well, this is proof that it's premeditated. Todd must have like turned off the cameras when he was planning to do this. They put in a request to get like all of the Google searches that were done on Todd's iPad. And what they found was all sorts of suspicions. They see that there were some very odd searches going on, okay, made on this Google. There were topics like quote,

what did the Aztecs do with cheating spouses?' What did they do? I don't know. There was another search done that said, "'Did ancient cultures kill adulterers?' Another search, killing unfaithful women. Oh God. Another search, once a cheater, always a cheater. And then a website titled,

"'16 Facts About Che about cheating women was visited. So it's not looking good for you, Todd. But just listen, okay? Because I know what you're thinking, like it's Todd, it's Todd, it's clear as day, it's Todd. But just listen, just go on this journey. We haven't arrived yet, okay? So after this, police are like, boom, that's it, we got him.

Todd was placed under arrest for murder in the first degree. He was behind bars for almost seven months until his trial took place. Now Todd insisted, he insisted that he was innocent and that this whole thing was just a freak accident. And he had a lot of supporters who stood by him believing that this was true. So let me tell you, because again,

I watched the whole court thing and it was so frustrating to watch. Todd's team sucked. They blew it. Todd's trial begins and in the opening statements, his team didn't mention the possibility of Amy's death being an accident to the jury. Instead, they went on to say that Amy was quote,

"'viciously and deliberately murdered.'" Now this took Todd by surprise, because that's not what you wanna say when you're trying to prove to the jurors that, I don't know, Todd might be innocent, and maybe perhaps, you know, it was just all a freak accident. So now Todd claiming that his wife's death was an accident

was completely off the table. And this just wasn't even the plan. So the prosecution's case required them to prove that Amy was having an affair. She was preparing to leave Todd, that she was gonna be taking the children with her and taking the farm. So friends of Amy's took the stand.

Now, one of the friends said that one day, like Amy came to her just really upset and was crying. She said that if her husband had found out that she was having an affair, he would kill her. Another witness said that Todd told her that he had worked for a farm since he was 11 years old and he would not give it up. It was a red flag for this friend

because she went to Amy and was like, "'Look, Todd's gonna kill you.'" And when they asked her, like, "'Why would you tell Amy this? "'Why would you say that?' And she said, "'Todd is just the person you don't want to mess with.'" End quote.

Todd and Amy's son, he ends up testifying for the court, which was Todd's solid alibi. But now he had changed his story, or his story had changed. Tristan said that he had left his dad alone at one point to get a drink of water. Now originally saying he had gone for just a minute or two, and then in court when he's testifying,

he said that he was unsure how long he was away from his dad. Now remember, originally he said that he was unsure how long he was away from his dad. Now remember, originally he said that his dad never left his sight. So that was a solid alibi. And now he's saying that, you know, he had left for a period of time to get a drink of water. The prosecutors were like,

this proves that Todd is the one who did it. As I was watching this, I had some questions arise that I, look, Tristan leaves to get a drink of water. And he said, maybe I was gone for a minute or two. I'm not really sure. Could Todd have gotten out of the barn he was working in over to the red barn where Amy was, which the hog barn was a football field length away.

So he would have to run that, kill Amy, run all the way back into the hog barn where he was before his son noticed. That's the question that really wasn't answered at all during the trial. And it was driving me fricking nuts. Like how was that possible without the son noticing? I don't know because they never answered it.

They never even tried to answer it. Todd thought it would be best to take the stand and tell his side of things, prove that he's innocent. So Todd takes a stand, which is ballsy. He tells the jury that he never left the hog barn and again his story never changed. Cross-examination happened, that's when they bring up Todd's questionable Google searches.

They're asking like, hey did you make these searches on the iPad and start listing them? And Todd says, no. Todd said that he was not the only one who uses iPad, that many different people in the family, they would use it from time to time. Now, another thing that they pointed out in court, but they didn't even like focus on it. And again, I was like, I'm not understanding why nobody's bringing this up. Cause on the iPad, there were lots of searches made. There were searches found for wedding dresses.

There were searches made for Zales, the jewelry store. And then also there were Pinterest searches made. And they asked Todd, like, do you know what Pinterest is? He has no idea. He has no idea what the hell that is. The prosecutors, they again, look at these Google searches. This is his iPad. Like he made these searches.

But why would Todd be searching for wedding dresses if he was the only one using the iPad? Again, it was like another question that was never answered. Yeah, those Google searches are like, they don't look good. So then they asked Todd, why did the video camera stop recording? Isn't that a little weird?

Todd said that they had many cats and kittens on the farm and where the camera equipment was, there was also a heater right next to it. In the colder months, the cats like to climb up or jump up onto the heater and they lay on it to get some warmth. He believed they must have knocked the equipment all down and like, which took the camera system completely off.

Todd said the day after Amy's death, a family member mentioned to Todd, maybe your camera's caught something. Why don't you check your cameras out? And he went to go check it out and that's when he saw everything was offline and it wasn't recording. So he put it all back together,

plugged it all back in, and got it back up and running the next day. So that's why the camera started recording literally the next day. I mean, his answers sounded pretty legit. I'm sorry. It did. It sounded legit.

So at this point, the Mullis trial was playing live on court TV, and there were many people who were invested in this case. Someone at home who was watching the trial took the time to analyze Todd's 911 call that he made when he was driving to the hospital. This person believed that Todd was saying something under his breath in the call.

As Todd was performing CPR on his wife, the person who analyzed the call believed that Todd was saying, quote, cheating whore, and go to hell cheating whore, under his breath. Now investigators never heard that until they got the tip from the caller the night before the last day of the trial. Like something out of a movie, I swear, right?

No, John, did you just hear that whisper at the end of that? Yes. And what did you whisper? I couldn't hear it. Okay, I'm going to play it again. Todd, do you whisper cheating whore right there? No. Right there, do you say go to hell cheating whore? No. So you don't hear that? I didn't want to watch it. I just want to watch it. Right there, do you say, go to hell, cheating whore? No.

So you don't hear that? I didn't hear that word. And right after you hear a ping, you don't hear, go to hell, cheating whore? No. You know when you hear, like, you don't hear anything in a muffled tape, and then someone goes, listen, they're saying banana. And you're like, oh, okay. And then all of a sudden you hear banana.

You're like, oh my God, yeah, they're saying banana. It was like that. Cause when you listen to it, you're like, I don't hear a damn thing. And then when they play it again, you're like, it could be. Todd's team, are they the defendants? Oh shit, I get everyone mixed up. But Todd's team, they come back and they're like,

Todd was mumbling so cold under his breath. She's so cold. They played again and then you hear, oh yeah, so cold, she's so cold. Many, many were and are unclear as to what he's saying. And it sounds like it could really be either or. The 911 tape though, it becomes like the main focus in closing arguments to prove that Todd did it.

This is the proof that they had. This and the Google searches. So the jury deliberates and it takes them two days to come back with a verdict. Now the jurors in a later interview said that there was zero physical evidence that linked Todd to this murder and wish that they actually provided more proof

that he was linked to her death. But what they did find odd, obviously the Google searches that were made, that seemed to be proof that Todd was thinking of murdering his wife. Jurors also found it odd that Todd put Amy in the truck and he started driving to the hospital with her. And then he made the 911 call.

They thought any normal person would just call 911 first and they just couldn't wrap their heads around the idea. Like why did he do otherwise? Which, whatever. They also voiced that Todd taking the stand actually just did not help his case at all. Todd came off very cold. He didn't show any emotion.

He was a man of few words. And honestly, yes, it's very true. All of this led them to find Todd guilty for first degree murder or murder in the first degree. Now, when they read this verdict, Todd was, he looked like a, just a sad fish. He was so bummed. His sentence was delayed due to COVID and Todd used that time to hire a new lawyer

who said Todd should get a new trial because of what he claimed was misconduct on the part of the prosecutors for raising the hidden whispers on the 911 tape and that his original lawyers denied his right to Amy's death being an accident right from the start. The defense attorney should have left that door open

for the jurors to decide if it was an accident or a murder, but instead they just took that option completely off of the table, so they're trying to get him a new trial. The judge refused to throw out the guilty verdict. The judge ends up sentencing Todd to first degree murder and life in prison with no opportunity for parole. The end. Now I know what you're all thinking

because I originally thought so too. I was like, it's Todd. Those Google searches are like, come on. I let it sit and marinate for a little bit, my thoughts and my feelings. And I was like, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. And this one really started to bother me. I don't know what I would think

if I were a juror on this case. I don't know if I could say he's guilty or not. I know I roll, but there are so many unanswered questions. There's so many unanswered questions. For example, where Amy was found, it was narrow, okay? It was narrow. What if it was just a freak accident? Just hear me out.

What if, because she was getting this pet carrier. Now this pet carrier was like, it was said to weigh about 20 to 30 pounds. It was on the floor. Remember, she was getting dizzy and like lightheaded that day. What if she went to go pick up the pet carrier? She gets a little lightheaded.

Maybe she like missteps. She missteps, she goes backwards and she walks into the corn rake. And then she's like, oh shit, I just walked into the corn rake. And she pulls herself off of it. And then what if she just got dizzy or she blacked out or something?

And then she falls back onto the corn rake? Because nobody mentioned or brought up where was the corn rake? Was it hanging up? Was it standing up? Was it on the ground? Was the corn rake even left in the barn? Now another thing, if it was a murderer, how was someone able to swing and hit her with the corn rake?

It was super narrow in there. They didn't give you any ideas or anything as to like how this happened. Also, nobody presented an idea how Todd would have been able to make it all the way across the farm, kill Amy, get all the way back before their son would have noticed. How the heck did that happen? And wouldn't the son, like, wouldn't he have noticed that Todd was, I don't know, sweaty or like out of breath

because he just ran a ton? Because he couldn't have walked if his son was gone for even just a few minutes to get water. Can you run a whole football field and back in just a few minutes? I, can you? The Google searches are like not great. Okay, we don't know what the heck that was about,

but maybe he was just Googling it. But if Todd was the only one using this iPad, like they swore up and down he was, then again, why were there searches for wedding dresses, jewelry and Pinterest? If Amy was paranoid that something was going to happen to her, if like Todd found out she was having an affair,

maybe she was Googling what could happen to her. Maybe she's Googling like signs of women cheating so she knew like what not to do. And I'm not trying to blame her here. I'm just trying to like look at all the options because they were not talked about, mentioned, presented in court at all. It's just weird.

And there's too many unanswered questions. He was found guilty because of his Google history. And to me, that's terrifying because my Google history is fucked up. And I automatically think like, oh, I would be so fucked. This one was like literally been keeping me up at night. So I'm just like, oh, I would be so fucked. This one was like, literally been keeping me up at night. So I'm just like, if she was murdered, oh, like that's awful.

That's awful, I don't want her to be murdered. But at least like in court, you should tell us how it was done. Does anyone else think that's fucked up? Or is that, am I literally just playing devil's advocate here? Either way, this case or this murder, this death, it's sad, it's really sad. The kids, they lost both of their parents

and the son is probably traumatized and will have to carry this for the rest of his life. You know, like that's awful. And I hope they're okay. I'm just confused. I'm so confused on this one. There's a lot of people who believe he's guilty, but I don just confused. I'm so confused on this one. There's a lot of people who believe he's guilty, but I don't know.

Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. You make good choices, please. And I will see you guys later. Bye.